Some Of My Pet Peeves

I try not to grow too long a list of things I find disturbing, annoying or irritating. Should I just get over this stuff?

Examples:
• Long lines of vehicles, V-8 engines running, waiting their turn to order unhealthy food at drive-throughs.

• Well-to-do folks (including most of us in the top 3-5% of the world's wealthiest people) constantly complaining about how financially stressed they are.

• An endless array of bogus "tests" circulated on Facebook that supposedly tell us what celebrity, rock band, or Sesame Street character we are like.

•  Able bodied people who let their kids use automatic door openers designed for the handicapped, and who themselves regularly use escalators and elevators when stairs would provide them with some much needed exercise.

• Congregations (and individual members of faith communities) who are all too willing to split off and divorce themselves from other believers with whom they disagree.

• Folks who are capable of thinking only along denominational, party or ideological lines and don't seem open to the possibility of ever learning anything from folks with whom they disagree.

• Commercials, especially those by highly profitable drug companies trying to persuade us to "ask your doctor to see whether _____ is right for you."

• People decrying waste and misuse of funds designed to help the poor and sick while completely ignoring waste, fraud and abuses in the name of "defense".

• Endless texting and cell-phoning while avoiding conversations with people who are actually present.

• Non-scientists denying the science of how human activity is contributing to climate change.

• Over-protective and over-indulgent parenting.

• Virginia's no-parole law and other punitive aspects of its supposed "department of corrections".

What are some of your own favorites?

Parenting Is Worth Every Penny

photo source

Over a decade ago I noted in one of my Centerpiece radio spots that the USDA had come up with a figure of over $160,000 as the total cost of raising a child from birth to 18. This was for a middle income family, and didn't even touch college tuition. A more recent CNN estimate is $241,080.

In that radio piece I quoted writer Regina Brett, the host of "The Regina Brett Show" aired on station WKSU in Cleveland, who noted that $160,000 translated to just over $24 a day, or about a dollar an hour. She came up with the following list of great returns we get for our investment:

Naming rights. Frst, middle, and last.

Glimpses of God every day.

Giggles under the covers every night.

More love than your heart can hold.

Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.

Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.

A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.

A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles, and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.

 Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling a wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a soccer team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God.

In light of all that, parenting, while certainly not without its headaches, can be seen as worth every penny.

A Dumb, Durable And Dangerous Delusion*

Ever since medieval times, we have been enamored with the following tenets of the "romantic love myth":

1) Love is a total mystery, something strongly felt but impossible to describe or explain.

2) Love has a kind of power that comes (or goes) without any effort, warning or reason.

3) Love radically transforms everything under its spell, having us see our beloved as the fulfillment of our every dream.

4) Love is overwhelming and all-consuming. When we are truly in love we cannot eat, sleep, or do anything without our beloved being foremost in our minds.

5) Finding this kind of romantic love is life's ultimate good, and is worth giving up of our dreams, our career, or even our current partner to gain.

6) Once love really strikes, we know for sure, with never a doubt, that we’ve found the one right person meant just for us.

7) Love is its own authoritative and final reality. Once we’ve found it/him/her, no one can tell us anything different. We just “know that we know that we know,” never mind what our friends, our parents or anyone else might say to the contrary.

Psychologist Frank Pittman, author of the book “Private Lies,” calls this kind of obsession  a “temporary form of insanity.” While most of us agree in principle, all or parts of the myth still remain alive and well in our culture.

* Pardon the title for violating the journalist rule "Always avoid any and all alliterations".

Memo To Me: Fact-Check First, Then Post

source is questionable

On a recent blog on "Should the Present U.S. Economy Survive?" I included a pay ratio chart that a friend of mine pointed out was based on outdated information and less than stellar research. The visual had apparently gone viral on the Internet and was widely accepted as legitimate, but the fact-checking website PolitiFact.com considers it false, leading me to remove it from my earlier post.

In their October 10, 2011, analysis PolitiFact admits the numbers may have been true in 2005 (now nearly a decade ago) depending on which CEO's were included and what benefits were considered as a part of their wage package. They also say the reputable Institute for Policy Studies cited even higher disparities in 1999 (516 to 1) and 2000 (525 to 1), but that their more recent (2009) number is 325 to 1. The Economic Policy Institute, using a different methodology, came up with a 185-to-1 figure in 2009.

While I regret using less than accurate numbers above, even the 185-to-1 ratio to me does not represent anything close to moral or Biblical justice. It means that a worker must put in a full year's labor for what his or her CEO earns in less than two days.

Meanwhile I've become increasingly interested in not only corporation pay scales, but in how faith-based non-profits are compensating their employees. I've learned that it isn't unusual for CEO's of some charitable and church-run agencies to earn in excess of $200,000 in annual salaries and benefits while some of their low-level employees make do with 10-20% of that.

Is that how Jesus would run an organization? I welcome your feedback.

Virginia Second Only To Florida For Long Prison Stays

click here for full report

Virginia is about to exceed $1 billion in annual spending on corrections for the first time since 2009, according to a report issued this week by the Justice Policy Institute.

In spite of this rising increase in cost, our legislators continue to reject reducing prison time for nonviolent offenders, and Virginia's Parole Board maintains its record low 3.5% early release rate for inmates convicted before parole was abolished in 1995. Many prisoners under the "old law" (before parole was done away with during Governor Allen's administration) are eligible for release based on a record of exemplary behavior since being in prison, and an increasing number of aging prisoners clearly deserve to be freed through the Geriatric Parole Statute provisions enacted in 1995.

According to the Institute's report, the rate of violent crimes in Virginia is actually declining, and is in fact lower than at any time since 1960, and the 22 states that have not adopted Virginia's increasingly harsh sentencing provisions have experienced equal or greater reductions in crime.

Meanwhile, gang related and other violence appears to be on the increase inside Virginia's prisons, according to reports I get from the inside. Many inmates see this as partly due to a chronic shortage of staff, which in turn limits the kinds of rehabilitative programs available, and partly due to the lack of incentive for good behavior that has resulted from a lack of provision for parole.

If you agree that there's something wrong with this picture, please join in the exercise of fervent prayer and persuasion to help bring about positive change.

Click here for more posts on criminal justice, and here for the story of how Sweden has been able to close four of its major prisons.

Free Marriage Class At FLRC

Well, almost free.

Each couple will use the text, Lasting Marriage--The Owners' Manual, available at $10 each, and we do urge participants to make a tax-deductible donation to the Family Life Resource Center at the end of series in lieu of a fee for the class.

Here are the themes covered in the four 7-8:30 pm sessions held in our classroom at FLRC starting April 14 and continuing each Monday through May 5:

1. We Learn to Invest More of Our Time and Creativity in Our 'Problem-Free Area'.

2. Each of us Focuses More on our 'Personal Problem Area' Rather Than Our Spouse's.

3. When it Comes to our 'Spouse's Problem Area', Each of us Practices Arguing Less, Listening More.

4. Together we Learn to Become Better Problem-Solvers and Decision-Makers in our 'Mutual Problem Area'.

Here are some comments from evaluations done by recent participants:

"We have learned so many helpful techniques that are providing hope and encouragement for us. Thank you!"

"I found the idea of the 'talking stick' very helpful, along with the idea of having a larger 'problem-free are' and then separate times set aside to talk about our problems."

"I found the ideas presented applying to many relationships, not just to our marriage."

"I liked the useful handouts which we were able to go over as a couple, and I loved hearing from other class members, too."

"I really like the book--clearly written and with memorable examples."

To register for the class contact services@flrc.com or call 434-8450.

"My children are gone forth from me, and they are not"

source

It's hard to imagine the suffering and grief many of our ancestors experienced in the untimely deaths of their young children for lack of medical care we take for granted today.

I found the following heart wrenching example in the June 15, 1974, minutes of a Historical Society meeting held in my wife's home community in Juniata County, Pennsylvania:

In 1872 John Kurtz and wife Catherine Shelly had seven living children (five others had died in infancy). On the 25th of July the following died of diphtheria within a six hour period, Jacob, 6, Samuel, 17, and Anna, age four. Jacob and Anna were laid in one coffin, and all three were buried in one grave.

The text for the funeral service on July 28 was Jeremiah 10:19-20: "Woe is me, for my hurt. My wound is grievous. But I said, Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it. My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken; my children are gone forth from me, and they are not; there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtain."

Soon after they came home from the funeral, Barbara, age 16, died, then Catherine, 15, died that same evening. The next morning their youngest, Sarah, at a year and seven months of age, also died. Only John, age 13, was left of their seven children.

At the July 30 funeral service, the following text from Baruch 4:19-20 and 23 was used: "Go your way, O my children, go your way; for I am left desolate. I have put off the clothing of peace, and put upon me the sackcloth of my prayer; I will cry to the Everlasting in my days. For I sent you out in mourning and weeping; but God will give you to me again with joy and gladness forever."

The couple later had two more children, Abram and Christian, but no daughters.

Whenever I think of going through difficult times, I want to remember people like John and Catherine Kurtz, along with parents around the world who still experience the heartbreaking loss of children to disease, famine and war.